This man is one of the officially lincensed streat peformers of Tokyo.
(This picture was taken at Yoyogi park)
Until last year, street peformers were (strictly speaking,) illegal in most places.
They had only limited occasions to perform.
But the present governor of Tokyo proposed an ordinance
to offer far more occasion and places for them to perform
(to make Tokyo a happier city!)

This man is a traditional style story teller.
In my parents' childhood, a little after the World War II,
this "picture card showing" was the biggest entertainment
for children. We call it Kami-shibai (paper play) in Japanese.

I found a nice website about it so check this out later!
http://www.kamishibai.com/

Kamishibai story tellers are very very VERY eloquent all the time!!
Expression of his face and tone of his voice tells quite a lot of things
with one picture.(One story usually consists of several pictures)

When Masaki and I happened to find him in the park, there were already
several audience in front of him.
Two of them were white men and they were friends.
(it seems they didn't understand Japanese and they were just looking)
As they left, one of them said to the other "gees, crazy Manzai(comic dialogue)..."
obviously shaking his head in disgust.
I should have told them that his performance is not something
they can criticize without knowing our culture or history background...

Anyway, I thought I should introduce it here so at least the
visitors to my website can understand what it is if they
happen to have a chance to see these story telling in Japan : )



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